


Less a man than a wild cat

by JadeLavellan (Jadestone)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, but it's fine, i can't write anything without at least some angst okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-21
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-01 05:13:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12149361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadestone/pseuds/JadeLavellan
Summary: From a prompt.Fenris leaves town for a few days while Hawke deals with business in Kirkwall. One night at The Hanged Man, while she and the rest of the gang recover after a hard day and wait for him to return, a small grey cat saunters in. And the bright white markings on its fur lookextremelyfamiliar.(so does the way he takes a swipe at Anders, and purrs whenever Hawke looks at him).Takes place (mostly) after the quest Following the Qun. Title is a spin off one of Anders lines--if you romance Fenris, he warns you that he seems "Less a man to me than a wild dog."Posting this here in chapters but it's pretty much finished already--this will be a short one.Full prompt (contains spoilers for the ending): https://dragonage-kink.dreamwidth.org/91059.html?thread=365594291#cmt365594291





	1. Chapter 1

“I’m going to be gone for a few days.” Fenris doesn’t look at her as he says the words, staring instead at one of the empty bottles atop the splintering desk.

He doesn’t _need_ to ask her permission—Hawke knows this—but something inside her chest clenches hard at the words. He isn’t asking, he is telling her a fact. Fenris is leaving. Again.

“Oh?” she asks, trying to sound casual, her hands fidgeting nervously at her sides. She wished he had more places to sit down in this Maker-forsaken dilapidated wreck of a mansion. Or anything she could distract herself with at the sudden rush of anxiety his words spark in her. She glances at the bottle, too. It’s covered in a fine film of dust, untouched since he emptied it, with no fresh counterpart in sight.

“There’ve been rumors of a slaver ring, running out of a cave on the Wounded Coast. I wanted to see if they were true.”

Hawke brightens. Now _this_ is the sort of drama she can cope with. “We can all go check it out.”

“Hawke, you agreed to speak to the Arishok on behalf of the Viscount the day after tomorrow. You don’t have time to make it to the sea and back.”

“We can head out right after. Once Seamus goes back to the Keep and this whole mess is sorted out, we’ll—”

“No, Hawke.” The refusal is soft, but certain.

She stops talking. He still doesn’t look at her. He’s right, of course—all the nonsense she’s been dragged into lately takes up far more time than she ever expects it to. By the time she could herd everyone out to the Wounded Coast herself, the slavers might already have moved on. It makes more sense for someone to go now, and either take care of the matter directly, or at least get a better sense of the operation if it proves too large for one man—or elf—to handle.

She should be happy he’s warning her at all, although somehow, this quiet declaration is more worrying than if he’d simply vanished for a few days unannounced.

“Okay,” she simply tells him instead.

“I’ll be back soon.”

“If I haven’t heard from you in a few days, I’ll drop whatever bullshit the Viscount’s tries to force on me next and come help.”

He exhales, not quite a laugh, but the slight quirk to one corner of his lips sets her heart stuttering in a way that is more than a little unwise. When she exists his crumbling home, this time it’s her fleeing from something she is not sure she understands, or should want.

   

___________________________

  

He was right about the mission turning into a mess, anyway, Hawke reflects glumly into her drink three days later. A framed murder, a bloody fight in a chantry of all places, tensions growing even tighter between the city and the Quanri—and the Viscount’s son dead. Maybe everyone would have been better off if she’d abandoned the whole mess to go chasing slavers on the Wounded Coast after all.

Hawke grimaces, and drains off half the mug of ale. Her whole group is grim, huddled at their table in The Hanged Man, an abandoned game of Wicked Grace scattered across the table. Even Isabela and Varric are less chatty than usual, and Aveline’s stony expression has barely shifted even after the third round. The persistent drizzle outside isn’t helping matters—the entryway to the crowded bar lets in a chill blast of evening air each time the door swings open, and the damp permeating her armor steams uncomfortably in the heat of the fire.

No one, lest of all Hawke, notices the small grey cat that trots in on the heels of the latest patron, a stumbling man already-drunk on Maker knows what. The cat ignores him, sliding nimbly between ankles until it reaches the edge of their long wooden table. It leaps up onto the surface, cards fluttering as the soggy creature gives a hasty shake, sand flying into everyone’s drinks before it sits down to ferociously groom its chest with a small pink tongue.

For a moment, everyone is too startled to say anything; although it is only a moment before Merrill’s delighted “aww” and Aveline’s “erhg” jolt the rest of the group into motion.

“Well, hello there,” Anders croons, reaching across the table towards the damp beast. It immediately hisses, batting away the offered hand with one claw-extended paw. Anders jerks back with a grimace, and the cat stands and stalks its way further down the table before settling again and fixing them all with a fierce glare.

Hawke snorts. “Guess not every cat can like you,” she tells him. The tiny creature swivels its head to stare at her with bright green eyes, and a low rumbling begins to emanate from its chest.

“Is it—growling?” Hawke asks, uncertain.

“Maker, Hawke, have you never seen a cat? It’s purring.” Isabela extends a hand more slowly. “Here, sweet thing,” she tells it as it sniffs her fingers.

“Don’t touch that, it probably has fleas.” Aveline pointedly pushes her mug—still nearly full—farther onto the table.

“I’ve had worse,” Isabela says with a flash of white teeth, and grabs and drains the tankard in one go.

“Oh, Creators,” Merrill murmurs. “Look where it’s clean. It’s got white markings.”

It is indeed striped, not solid grey, Hawke can see now as the crackling heat of the fire begins to dry out the sodden fur. Fine white lines, criss-crossing its fine-boned chest and back. In fact… they look almost… recognizable. She’s certainly never seen this feline before, so why did it seem so—familiar?

“ _Please_ tell me I’m not the only one seeing this, Hawke,” Merrill adds, watching the cat in fascination.

Hawke nearly chokes on her drink.

“No,” she says, firmly. But the thing’s head turns to her again, and those eyes… as green as fresh leaves…

“Andraste’s tits, you’re not implying what I think you are.”

“What are you talking about?” Varric glances between Isabela, Hawke, and Merrill, who all stare at the cat open-mouthed.

“Just look at it,” the elf cheerfully replies. “It’s got Fenris’ markings. Right down to those cute little chin stripes.”

Hawke leans closer. It really does. “This _has_ to be a coincidence.”

“It couldn’t—this couldn’t actually _be_ him, right?” Isabela asks. “Some spell gone tits-up or something?”

“Maker’s breath,” Anders replies, reaching again for the cat. It hisses, and steps haughtily off the table and into Isabelas lap. Curled up, it turns its face to meet Hawke’s astonished gaze once more, and begins to purr.

 

 

“It can’t stay here,” Varric says firmly. The cat lays on the table now, a snubbed bowl of fish stew still steaming on one side of it, and a delicately nibbled plate of undercooked bacon on the other. “Corff is already glaring, and you don’t want to know what some of these people would do for a free dinner. The Hanged Man doesn’t exactly cater to high clientele.”

“Hey now,” Isabela protests. “That’s part of its charm.”

“Charm does not make a safe place for a kitten,” Anders replies dryly. “No matter how much he seems to like _you_. And I doubt he shares your taste in men, if you’re planning to sleep here tonight.”

“That’s enough,” Hawke cuts them off as Isabela opens her mouth to escalate. Secretly, Hawke suspects he’s just bitter the cat likes her more. The _cat_. Not a person. An animal.

“Well we can’t just leave him to fend for himself,” Merrill protests. “Imagine how horrible it would be if we came back tomorrow and someone had eaten Fenris.”

“Would you stop calling it that?” Hawke snaps.

“I don’t know, Hawke,” Isabela says doubtfully. “You have to admit—it looks awfully like him.”

“Not you, too,” Hawke groans. “Anders, tell them. You’d recognize if this was a spell, right?”

Anders doesn’t say anything, biting his lip as he considers the cat stretched on the table.

“Oh, come on!”

He raises his hands helplessly, shrugging. “I don’t know! Shapeshifting magic wasn’t ever my focus. And even then, that’s usually the caster himself changing, not someone without magic at all.”

“But it _is_ possible for people to turn into animals?” Varric asks. “There’s a precedent for it.”

“Well—technically, yes, I suppose.”

“Oh, mages can certainly turn other people into animals,” Merrill chimes in. “The Dalish have all sorts of stories about just such things.”

“But he was just investigating a slaver ring on the Wounded Coast,” Hawke protests. “No mages involved, not that he seemed to think anyway.” Then again, Hawke wonders—would he have told her if there were? Would he have expected her to stop him, if he thought _she_ thought he couldn’t handle it? _Would_ she have?

“There weren’t supposed to be dragons on the Wounded Coast either, but you just had to buy the mine with all of them, too,” Aveline points out.

“The Bone Pit is different,” Hawke snaps, returning to the conversation at hand. “It was a weird place. It had all those magical items buried in the caves.”

There is silence for a minute.

“We _do_ keep chasing apostates that make their way out there,” Merrill finally points out.

“So…” Varric replies slowly, “You’re saying…”

Six heads bend to peer intently at the cat. Feeling their gaze in and the sudden silence, it lifts its head and looks around at them. Piercing green eyes lock with Hawke’s once again, and a shiver runs down her spine that has nothing to do with the cold night wind whistling outside the tavern.

“Fenris?” Hawke asks, hesitantly.

“ _Mrrrow,_ ” the cat responds, blinking once.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” she swears.

 

___________________________

 

By the end of the night, they all agree that Fenris can’t stay at The Hanged Man. Merrill and Varric’s earlier worry about the cat vanishing into someone’s stomach is simply too unsettling by then. But Merrill doesn’t trust that he could take on the giant rats that swarm the alienage, Aveline flat-out refuses to let him into her home until he’s back to his proper shape, and the cat himself snarls every time Anders makes a move towards him.

Which leaves… Hawke. And even if he knows who he is, Fenris clearly has been _drastically_ affected by his cat form, or he’d understand why she’d put him in a sack to carry home through the rain and would _stop_ with the _maker-damned yowling_. She swears she can feel his tiny but sharp claws scrabbling at her through the thick canvas bag, and she’s going to have to get Orana to help her mix up a salve for the long scratches down her arm from when she stuffed the unwilling man-turned-cat inside.

“It’s for your own good,” she informs the sack stubbornly during a pause in the wailing. “You’d just get wet again, and probably stepped on.” She gets dirty looks from people on the street anyway, and her slosh home through the muddy puddles feels three times as long as it should.

 

 

When she finally— _finally—_ arrives, she drops the bag on the floor to land with an undignified _thud_ and another resentful howl.

“Serves you right,” she tells him as she locks the door.

Slowly, the bag shifts, and a light grey head emerges. It sniffs cautiously, front paws slowly creeping out of the fabric and onto the floor of the Hawke estate.

The click of nails on the floor and a soft panting sound send Hawke’s heart into a panic, she hadn’t even _considered_ —but, no, her mabari is as well-trained as ever, standing absolutely still a few feet away. She reaches over to scratch his ears as he sniffs the air furiously, but makes no move toward the huddled shape still mostly hidden under fabric.

“This is Fenris,” she tells the dog sternly. “Not some random cat. There will be absolutely no chasing him around the house.”

The mabari whines softly, tilting his head.

“I don’t care, you have to leave him alone. We’re going to get him back to normal as soon as we can. For now, you’re gonna have to share the house, I guess.” Hawke bends down and kisses the dog softly atop its short furred head. “Don’t worry. It’s only temporary, I still prefer you to cats. If Fenris had any sense, he’d have gotten himself turned into a mabari anyway.”

The dog’s tail starts wagging, just as Fenris finally fully emerges from the bag. With a haughty glance around, he pointedly ignores both Hawke and dog and begins to investigate the room.

“Fine, sorry,” Hawke sighs. “Although I don’t know how we’re going to get you out of this mess.”

“ _Mrow_ ,” Fenris replies reproachfully, the tip of his high-held tail twitching back and forth in annoyance. After inspecting the fireplace, he crosses the room to leap on top of the writing desk, carefully sniffing Hawke’s mail.

“Oh, how cute!” Hawke glances up to see Orana crossing the room towards them, smiling.

“Ah, yes. He’ll be staying here for a while. Actually, funny story, this “cat” is really—careful!”

Orana’s hand extends towards the cat, and Hawke braces herself for the inevitably _hiss_ and clawing, but instead, she watches dumbfounded as Fenris politely lets the elf scratch his ears.

“Would you like me to take your armor?” Her voice is still shy and hesitant, even despite all Hawke’s insistence that she has total freedom in the estate.

“Uh. Yes. Thank you.” Maker, is he actually _purring_ again?

The lithe little elf leaves Fenris to help Hawke with her soaking clothes, and Hawke glares at him silently. Is that amusement she sees in those narrowed eyes? She’s not sure she can read cat body language, but oh, she certainly can read _Fenris._ Maybe its best not to tell anyone else, for now. Not at least until they know how just how he ended up like this.

“Do we have any, ah, cream?” Hawke hazards a guess.

“Oh, I’ll go get some right away!”

“No need,” Hawke assures her. “He had a lot of bacon already. And it’s raining; it can wait for morning.”

With a sigh, Hawke runs one hand through her bedraggled hair. In fact, all of this can wait until morning. It had been a long, awful, and now, baffling day. She wasn’t drunk, but she certainly wasn’t sober enough to think about this anymore tonight.

“I’m going to bed,” she announces, for the benefit of both parties listening. “If the Viscount sends for me again—don’t wake me.”

And with that, she turns her back on the mess that had been her day, and heads upstairs to her room.

 

 

When she emerges from her bathroom, freshly scrubbed and robed for bed—Fenris is waiting, stretched out on the rug in front of the fire. His fur is clean now—had Orana brushed him or something?—and the pale white lines stand out starkly in the firelight. Even his legs and tail have tiny striped circles and spots running down them.

“ _Murr_?” He chirps, flicking an ear as she stares.

“Uh, sorry,” Hawke says, shaking her head. “It’s just—weird. Um. You can sleep in here, I guess?”

Maker. Of all the bizarre ways she’d imagined him coming back to this room again—sometimes apologetic, sometimes pleading, sometimes with that nearly unbearable smirk on his face—this was certainly not one of them.

He was a cat.

Suddenly the whole situation feels ten times as awkward. Maker, why now? Why _her_ house? They’d finally been friends again, and she’d almost managed to push down all those feelings of—well.

Hawke sighs. “I can’t do this. Goodnight.” With that, she climbs into bed, determinedly not looking back to the small grey shape on the carpet. She can’t bear to meet his unnaturally round eyes right now, not with all her confusion plain on her face. She slides under the covers, her back to the fire, and lays still.

It takes her a long time to fall asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops... what was supposed to be a short fill is going to end up near 10,000 words. But it's mostly done; just needs the ending and some editing, so posting as a couple chapters to motivate/guilt myself into actually finishing. Enjoy!


	2. Chapter 2

The morning is pale and cold, as Hawke slowly surfaces from slumber. Thin beams of light filter in through the window, a chill breeze wafting in through the slightly cracked sill. The fire has died down to dark embers, unable to combat the autumn frost that has sunk into the bones of the city.

There is a small, soft spot of warmth against her chest.

Hawke does not move, carefully opening her eyes to gaze at the small grey lump curled beside her atop the blanket. He looks smaller even than before, the angry weight of his personality vanished as he sleeps. His back is pressed against her stomach, his body heat radiating though the thin fabric. She can’t see his face, turned away from her and half-tucked beneath a paw, but she stares for a long minute at the delicate curve of his ears.

 _The fire went out_ , she insists to herself, _he only got cold_. He never did like winters in the Free Marches. Or his altered feline instincts have instigated this abrupt change in his affection. She knows this, _knows_ it, but still…

She can’t help herself. Slowly, she lifts the arm lying on top of her side, and reaches towards him. Gently, barely brushing against him, she runs one finger across the back of his head.

His ear twitches, but his soft, shallow breaths do not change. His fur is softer than she’d guessed. Finer. Hawke traces along the edge of his ear, to the thicker fur at his neck. She doesn’t have a name for the emotion welling inside her chest. It is not the quiet affection she’d felt when they first met, and nothing at all like the intense but ill-advised attraction she’d carried before he made his feelings clear. If anything, it feels most like—guilt. Worry. A desperate sort of longing to fix things, because somehow, she is sure that this has to be her fault. If he hadn’t felt the need to travel alone, if she’d dropped everything and just gone with him to investigate—if he hadn’t decided to run away again. Prove himself. Whatever that conversation between them three days ago had meant.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, so softly she can barely hear it herself over his breathing and the bustle of the city outside. “I’ll fix this.”

And then there is a knock on the door, and Hawke spasms so violently in surprise as she leaps for the side of the bed that Fenris is almost knocked to the floor with a surprised yelp.

“Hello?” Hawke calls, trying to fake a dignity she certainly does not feel as the cat grumbles and stalks across her sheets.

“Just wanted to know if you would prefer breakfast up here, Miss,” Orana’s voice rings through the wood. “I have more logs for the fire.”

“Ah, yes—please, come in,” Hawke replies, rubbing at her eyes. Wake up. Enough wallowing in nostalgia. Time to sort this nonsense out. As well as the mess of yesterday, she’s _sure_ someone is going to come try to have words with her about all those bodies she left in the Chantry, not to mention all the probably priceless artifacts they’d knocked over during the fight…

Fenris sits on the bed, tail tucked carefully around his paws as he considers her.

“Oh, what?” Hawke snaps. “I don’t have any idea how to get you back to normal. Can you give us any hint? _Was_ it a mage, or some cursed amulet or something you found in one of those damned rotting chests all over the coastline? Meow once for yes, twice for no.”

He continues to watch her in unblinking silence.

“You’re no help at all,” Hawke mutters, turning to her wardrobe. “Go bother the dog.”

With a yawn, he stands, and lazily saunters out the open bedroom door. With a last flick of his tail, he vanishes, and Hawke closes her eyes. _What have I gotten myself into_ , she wonders dryly. 

 

___________________________

 

Fenris laps cream from a bowl as Hawke eats her morning porridge, frowning. There had indeed been several strongly worded missives slipped under their front door before she woke, all of them now tossed to the side of the table after only a cursory glance. If a regretful Aveline and her guards weren’t knocking on the door to arrest her already, there was probably no real way for the variety of threats to be carried out. At least, not in any way she couldn’t handle herself. Wouldn’t be the first time someone tried to knife her in an ally.

As though on cue, there is a knock at the door. Hawke stiffens, but it swings open to reveal only Merrill, prancing inside with bare feet that must certainly be feeling the bite of the cold cobblestones.

“Hello, Hawke,” she sings merrily from the doorway. “Has he turned back yet?”

“Not yet,” Hawke calls from the kitchen, and Merrill walks over to peer inside. Fenris pauses to glare up at her, a drop of cream clinging to his whiskers.

“Oh, that’s just adorable,” the elf giggles, and Hawke can’t help cracking a smile.

“Any ideas for turning him back?” she asks. “Apparently it’s not wearing off on its own.”

“I was reading all night. I asked some of the other elves if they remembered being told about anything like this, but it’s mostly folklore and children’s stories. Or too vague to be helpful. One of the Creators, Ghilan’nain, was turned into a halla by Andruil to save her life, but the tale says nothing of how it was done. I would have said it’s a magic lost to us for many years. But still,” she pulls out a small sheet of paper, and hands it across the table.

Hawke takes it, studying the unfamiliar black marks. She hadn’t seen much elvish writing—the letters are the same as the ones she’s used to, but the words mean nothing to her.

“This one is more like a children’s story,” Merril says, almost apologetically. “A boy is turned into a rabbit for misbehaving. He has to figure out how to change back before he’s cooked and eaten for supper.”

“That’s a _children’s story_? Hawke interrupts, horrified.

“Children’s tales are the most bloody,” Merrill remarks mildly. “I’m sure your stories were just the same. Who wants to pay attention if there’s no battles or fear for their life?”

“Fair,” Hawke amends, and Merrill continues.

“Anyway, mostly turning back involves finishing up all the chore’s he’d neglected before being turned into a rabbit, but he also eats a lot of the herb stores. I thought maybe we could try some of those and see if anything happens.”

Hawke brightens. The suggestion is surprisingly concrete, and if nothing else, gives them a starting point.

“That sounds reasonable. How hard could it be?”

 

 ___________________________

 

Four hours later, Hawke is bleeding from at least 7 separate scratches and puncture wounds, her house robe is in severe need of mending, and leaves and twigs are scattered across the entirety of her front room. Merrill had finally wearily suggested they give up for the day, after forcing the seventeenth concoction into Fenris’ mouth had resulted in nothing bit more bitemarks and a strong smell of spindleweed Hawke didn’t think she’d ever be able to remove from the carpet. She had gone home to clean the wounds, and Hawke regrets she can’t flee to elsewhere as well.

Fenris eyes her from where he crouches under the crafting table; tail lashing back and froth as he eyes her suspiciously.

“It’s for your own good, you know,” Hawke growls at him from her chair. “You could at least have spared us the dramatics and drank it, instead of making us chase you all over the house.”

“ _Mrrrr_ ,” Fenris grumbles from under the table. He does not come out.

There is another tap at the door. Hawke walks over to unlatch it, half-dreading that Merrill had changed her mind and come back for one more attempt.

Instead, Anders stands outside the door, and steps back in shock as he takes in her bedraggled appearance. “What _happened_ here?”

“Just the man I was hoping to see,” Hawke replies grimly, and yanks him inside. “Merrill stopped by. We tried to fix Fenris. It didn’t work.”

He surveys the room, which looks somewhat like they’d tried to fight a shrubbery and lost. “I… see.”

“Anyway, please help,” Hawke says, sitting down in the chair and letting her sleeves fall to reveal the myriad of scratches and welts.

“Ouch,” Anders agrees, surveying them. He pulls over a chair, and gently takes her palm between his own, turning it this way and that to examine it. “Guess it’s not just me he didn’t like messing with him after all.”

Hawke snorts. “If he had any sense left, he’d sit still and drink whatever horrible smelling brew Merrill shoves at him. If this keeps up I’m putting him back in that horrible mansion, and he can see how he likes it at night without thumbs to light a fire.”

She aims a glare under the crafting table, where Fenris’ nose pokes out, eying Anders suspiciously.

Anders chuckles, and his hands shimmer with a cold white light. Hawke’s breath catches as the tingling sensation washes over her skin, following his hands as he slides them along the scratches on her arm.

“That tickles,” she complains.

“I didn’t bring any salves,” he explains. “It’s easier to close them now than let them get infected.” He frowns, pressing two cool fingers against her bicep to close a particularly deep puncture. She shivers at the touch. “He certainly didn’t hold back, did he.”

Hawke ignores the plaintive, muffled _mew_ that echoes from beneath the desk. “I’m not sure how much is him and how much is cat,” she admits, “He seems to pay attention when we talk to him, but as soon as we tried to get him to drink, he— _ow_ ,”

“Sorry,” Anders says automatically, no trace of actual apology in his tone. He switches to her other arm; fingers tracing the outline of a scratch as he knits her skin back together. “Where did Merrill find the recipe anyway?”

“Some old Dalish story. It seemed like a good lead at the time.”

“Hmm. Well, maybe real medicine will give us a clue.”

Hawke raises an eyebrow. “I thought you just had a problem with the Dalish view on spirits, not their methods of healing.”

“You’re right,” he admits with a shake of his head. “I just—yesterday was hard. For all of us. And if Kirkwall’s taught me anything, it’s that when the Chantry and Templars get frightened, they take it out on the Circle. Even when it’s the Qunari causing it.” The mage’s voice lowers, his body still and solemn apart from his hands, still gently trailing over her skin. “People are restless. I had more in the clinic last night than I would have expected.”

“I’m sorry, Anders,” Hawke replies softly.

His palm presses against her shoulder, thumb brushing along a deep purple bruise on her collarbone she’d forgotten was there, not from the cat but from the too-recent grim fight between Petrice and the Qunari. Another flare of Anders' magic soothes the deep ache.

There is a soft patter, followed by a thump as Fenris launches onto the arm of her chair, and then steps daintily into her lap. She twitches in surprise, and Anders breaks their contact, leaning back and eying the cat suspiciously.

Fenris settles down to lay across her legs, front paws neatly tucked under his chest as his tail sweeps from side to side over the edge of the chair.

‘ _Wrowwr_ ,” he informs them, green eyes narrow slits as he stares down the mage. Anders raises his eyebrows, and Hawke feels her face burning red with embarrassment, not that she could even explain why.

“Oh, _now_ you’re ready to start behaving,” she says instead. “If you ever want us to figure out how to change you back, you have to let us look at you, you know.”

Humiliatingly, he begins to purr. Anders barked laugh does nothing to assuage the blush still burning across her face.

“Well?” she snaps. “Can you tell anything? Let’s see this modern medicine.”

Fenris stops purring as Anders slowly hovers his hands over the cat’s back, but he doesn’t hiss or swipe at him either. Anders closes his eyes, and when he opens them, they flash with a purple glow that is no less unsettling for how often she’s seen it demonstrated. The magic crackles down his fingers, and Fenris’ ears flatten and his tail lashes faster, but he doesn’t flee his perch on her knees. After a few moments, Anders’ hands drop, and with a blink the eerie light fades.

“Well,” he says with a sigh, “he’s not possessed. Or connected to the Fade in any abnormal way. He doesn’t have worms, either, which is a plus.”

“Ew.” Hawke wrinkles her nose. “So… what _can_ you tell?”

Anders shrugs. “Nothing much. He just seems like… a normal, healthy cat. A bit malnourished maybe. Whatever spell this is, it’s not some secret amulet or mental link I can detect. It’s just… transformation.”

“Can you, I don’t know, transform him back?”

Anders grimaced. “Not without years of training, resources I haven’t seen since I escaped the Circle years ago, and acceptance that the result will be far from perfect. I don’t think it’s safe.”

“So… what should we do?”

He shrugs. “Have you tried asking him who did it?”

“It’s not like he can _reply_.”

“We could always try taking him back to the Wounded Coast and letting him show us what happened.”

Hawke shakes her head. “Who—or what—ever it was, it must have done it right when he arrived. He must have been walking for two days straight to get back here so fast; they’re probably long gone by now. Poor thing,”

 _“Mrow,_ ” Fenris agrees. Hawke absently begins to stroke him, and he purrs again and leans into her fingers as she scratches the back of his neck.

Anders sighs. “I don’t know then. There’s still a chance it will wear off. Otherwise…” he shrugs. “Maybe one of Merrill’s recipes will work after all.”

Hawke groans. “Fine. But I’m not the one doing the feeding anymore.”

 

 

The rest of the afternoon is spent on unfortunate business. She locks Fenris inside the estate, despite his howled protests, as she traipses around the city collecting bits and pieces of rumors from yesterday. The news is… not good. Anders is right. The Chantry is panicking, turning people away while they sort out their mess, only spreading the unrest. When she heads down to the docks, the place is almost deserted. Only a few deckhands throwing wares to and from the rowboats, and even they glance nervously over to the Qunari compound now and then. She hesitates there for a minute, debating whether she should return to speak to the Arishok once more. But she’s too distracted, and even she recognizes it’d be foolish to head in alone—later, perhaps. When she’s more focused.

For now, she has an appointment with the Viscount she’s been absolutely dreading.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trying to get this posted pretty quickly, in contrast to literally any other fic of mine. Enjoy!


	3. Chapter 3

Hawke comes home late that night. She’d finished talking with—at, really—the Viscount for several hours, but hadn’t had the emotional fortitude to go home until long after. She wandered the street until her hands and feet were numb, her boots thudding like thick weights against the cobblestones, too cold to feel anything but a wave of pain with each step.

If she tires herself out enough, maybe she’ll fall asleep too fast for dreams, Hawke tells herself. That would be a nice change. Recounting the events of Seamus’ murder to his father in all their gruesome details was sure to work its way into her litany of nightmares tonight; his face joining her sibling’s and her mother’s and everyone else she never managed to save in their constant wailing inside her mind. She thought she was used to them, but something tells her tonight will be bad.

So it’s well after sundown by the time she stumbles back inside. Her mabari waits for her at the doorstep, whining in worry as she staggers across the mat, kicking off her boots.

“Hey, pup,” she tells him, and he valiantly tries to lick both her hands at once. “Sorry to worry you. I know, I know, I’m supposed to tell you when I stay out late.” She scratches behind his ear in the spot that makes him wriggle all over with excitement, and glances into the dim room.

Gleaming yellow pinpricks of light hover above the desk, vanishing and reappearing slowly as the cat blinks once at her arrival.

She hadn’t forgotten he was here—the situation is too weird for it to have left her mind entirely. But she hadn’t actually thought much about what it meant. She wasn’t alone anymore. She couldn’t just take off the mask and stop pretending to be the one with all the answers as long as he sat in her parlor, waiting for her to fix him.

It was always her who had to fix everyone else’s problems, it seemed.

“Hello to you too, Fenris,” she finally greets him. “I’d say sorry for leaving you inside all day too, but frankly, after this morning, you deserved it.”

The eyes bob downward as Fenris stretches, his silhouette lean and black in the orange firelight.

“Ok, go on,” she tells he dog, and after one last thorough licking of her fingers, he trots back to the small room where Orana sleeps. He’d taken to sleeping on the floor next to her bed, and while Hawke missed his presence at her own bedside every morning, if the mabari thought the elf needed him more during the night, she wasn’t going to take him away. The poor girl needed every comfort she could find—Hawke was seldom the only one to wake in the night with a scream muffled into a pillow.

She hesitates, looking at where Fenris still watches her. As she crosses to the stairs, he leaps down from the table in a single fluid motion, and trots up after her.

This time when she exits the washroom, ready to collapse, he is already curdled up at the foot of the bed, eyes closed. She watches him for a moment, trying to fight the awkward surge of—panic? Fear? Hope?—swelling in her chest. Gingerly, she lifts the covers and slides into their downy warmth, exhaustion taking hold.

“You know, it would have been nice to have you at that meeting with the Arishok,” she tells him. “He likes you. And you always do make whatever he’s saying seem more sensible than I expect. Maybe if you’d been there, I wouldn’t have fucked it up so spectacularly. But I hope you got those slavers before whatever happened to turn you into a cat. That’s important too.” Hawke yawns, and settles deeper into the blankets. Her hands and feet are returning to life, a painful prickling sweeping across her skin, but if she falls asleep fast enough she’ll skip the worst of it.

“Oh well. G’night, Fenris,” she murmurs into the pillows. _It’s only weird if you make it weird,_ she firmly tells herself, already drifting off as he shifts to settle into the space behind the crook of her knees.

  

  

Hawke had found herself with the wrong answers at many occasions lately, but unfortunately, her grim prediction of her sleep habits is not one of them. Tonight, she watches a dagger plunge into Seamus again and again, except, then somehow she is the one holding the dagger. And then, of course, it’s not Seamus after all, but the horrible stitched-together flesh of Quentin’s monstrosity; her mother’s face staring at her in blank-eyed horror as the dagger sinks into the half-rotted tissue of its chest.

Hawke’s near-gagging revulsion is what wakes her first, the contents of her stomach threatening to spill themselves across her pillows before the vibrant memory of the dream begins to slip away, like handfuls of sand. She lets it; this is one of many night terrors she has no interest in recalling the details of.

With an effort, she stifles her rising gorge, swallowing hard against the taste of bile. There’s a shifting at her feet and a sleepy _mrrrr_ as she props herself up to drain the glass of water next to her bed, before flopping down again.

There must have been a few hours of true rest in there, somewhere, but her impression of the night so far is bleak restlessness. She tries in vain to throw herself back into slumber, but her earlier weariness is sated only enough for it to remain just out of reach. When her eyes close, bloody visions dance behind her eyelids, and nonsensical fragments of conversation run through her head, interspersed with the eerie choir-song lilting of the most distressing phrases in the Chant.

Also, her arm is asleep. She rolls onto her other side and tries again. But the bruise on her collarbone aches still; despite the light healing Anders had worked earlier, before they’d turned their attention back to Fenris. The pressure of her neck against the pillow grows until it is all she can think about, and with a soft moan, she flops onto her back instead.

There is another disgruntled _mrrrow_ from her ankles.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, as the furry shape shifts position. “Didn’t mean to kick.”

The warm pressure leaves her feet—she hadn’t realized how nice it was to have a built-in toe warmer—and the mattress divots as Fenris stalks up the bed beside her legs.

“I said sor— _mmmph_ ,” Hawke grunts as his paws land on her stomach—how can something so small be so _heavy_ —and pace up her ribcage. With a satisfied swish of his tail, he settles down onto her chest, a substantial weight against her endless adjustments.

It doesn’t impede her breathing—not really—but Hawke _huffs_ anyway, biting back the urge to make a joke she’d _certainly_ regret in the morning about this not being the way she’d envisioned him being on top of her. Besides, it’s—kind of nice. Comforting, somehow, to have something warm and alive and _real_ at the front of her senses, rather than the endless and vague bloody scene that perpetually dances at the back of her mind. She can feel the soft vibrations of his quiet purring quiver down her sternum, spreading into her aching arms and legs. When was the last time her muscles weren’t sore, Hawke wonders. Certainly not in the last week. Maybe a month ago. Or maybe back in Lothering.

Maybe…

She is asleep before the next thought can finish.

 

 ___________________________

 

“Merrill stopped by to drop this off,” Orana tells her over breakfast the next morning, handing Hawke a small stoppered bottle. “She said it was for… the cat? Is he sick?”

“Oh, Maker,” Hawke grimaces, taking the potion. Through the glass, it is a muddy brown, and slides slowly and sludge-like down the insides as she experimentally tips it back and forth. “Nothing serious. Unless he claws me again instead of drinking this,” she says, with a pointed glare at Fenris. He ignores her to continue licking the small pat of butter set out for him, and Orana looks confused, but returns to chopping vegetables for that night’s stew silently.

There is a knock at the door. Orana moves, but Hawke sighs, and waves her back, standing. “It’s probably Merrill, come to see if this worked or not.” Just how _did_ that elf manage to wake up so early every morning anyway? Must be the influence of sleeping nearly outdoors for nearly her entire life. Hawke has cheerfully closed the curtains on as many dawns as possible, fully satisfied with the invention of light-proof walls.

 _Oh well_ , she thinks as she walks to the door, _I’ll make her feed it to him herself then_.

But when she opens it, a familiar if altogether different shape leans against the doorframe instead, silhouetted against the dawn.

“Heya, Hawke.”

“Isabela!” Hawke steps aside, gesturing for her to enter. “Are you here with some new way to try to get Fenris back to normal too?”

“What? You mean that cat thing hasn’t worn off yet?”

“It—no, he’s still the same. Furry, that is.” Hawke blinks. Now there was a phrase she’d never thought she’d say. “So you’re _not_ here with some newfangled scheme to turn him back then?”

“Nope. Figured the magic-y lot would have sorted that out already.”

“Thank the Maker,” Hawke sighs, and tosses Merrill’s bottle of ooze onto her desk. That particular battle can wait a few more hours at least.

“Shit,” Isabela comments, glancing around. “What are you going to do then? Is he here?”

“He _was_ just getting pampered by Orana in the kitchen. And… I don’t know. I thought it would go away on its own, but so far… no difference that I can see. Merrill’s had a few ideas. Anders said he wasn’t sure, but I bet he’s looking into the problem at least for curiosity’s sake, if nothing else.” Hawke shrugs. “Until then, I guess we wait, and start asking around.”

“Ask _who?_ ”

“Great question. Everyone, I guess. It’s not like my reputation’s anything to brag about—it’ll just be one more piece of weird added on.”

As they chat, Hawke hears a now-familiar light thumping sound from behind her. “Ah,” she says, turning. “Here.”

“Andraste, it really _is_ his markings,” Isabela mutters in awe as Fenris saunters up. They certainly are striking; Hawke has to agree, now that he’s completely cleaned of wet sand and city dust.

“Well? Are they accurate?” Isabela asks her, a slow grin creeping across her face.

“Hm?”

“The rest of them. Not his face or hands—uh, paws. You’re the only one who’s seen that far down his armor—”

“—Bela!” Hawke yelps, punching her arm, heat spreading across her face. “We are _not_ having this conversation.”

“Oh, fine.”

Fenris stares reproachfully up at them from ankle-height.

“ _Wrowr!”_ he demands, tail swishing back and forth on the floor.

Isabela immediately obliges, sinking into a cross-legged position on the rug to stare curiously at the cat. “Well, you’ve certainly gotten yourself into a mess, huh?”

“ _Mrrrp_ ,” he chirps in agreement, stepping forward to sniff at her fingers.

“You know,” she adds, looking up at Hawke, “when I woke up yesterday, I assumed this had been one _really_ drunken dream.”

Hawke joins her on the carpet. “I wish,” she replies honestly. “It was funny for the first day. Now I’m… worried. What if we can’t get him back?” Absently, she reaches out to pet his back, and he leans into the scratching.

Isabela bites her lip, frowning. “Yeah. It’d certainly be a damper on outings. We’d loose our best eye candy—besides me, of course.”  
Hawke forces a smile. “Guess we’ll just have to carry him around as a cat, then. Maybe throw him in someone’s face.”

“Oo, nice. Can you still do the glowy thing under that fur?” Isabela addresses him. He neither replies nor demonstrates, and she reaches out to pet him as well instead.

“At least tell me if he’s softer this way. He can’t get many opportunities to wash his hair in that giant hovel.”

Hawke groans, and shakes her head. “You’re terrible,” she tells the pirate, and Fenris purrs in agreement.

  

 

Somehow—and Hawke isn’t exactly sure the chain of conversation and events that lead to this—the afternoon finds her and Isabela lying on top of her bed, dangling one of the pirate’s scarves down over the edge while Fenris leaps and bats at it. Isabela flicks her wrist just as he lunges, and he skitters under the bed as the pounce caries him forward. His nose peeks out from underneath the bedframe to watch the dancing fabric as Hawke giggles helplessly.

“Oh Maker,” she gasps, “do it again.”

Smiling mischievously, Isabela twitches the fabric along the floor enticingly, and with a high pitched _mew_ of triumph, the cat tumbles from under the bed and onto the fabric. Isabela lets go as the small feline bats it into submission, fully tangling himself in the sheer silk.

“Haven’t you ever played with cats?” she asks Hawke, who is still laughing helplessly into the pillow propped under her chin.

“Not really,” Hawke manages between giggles. “I guess we had a barn cat in Lothering, to eat the mice. But I think Carver pulled its tail too many times for it to ever want to let us close.”

“I always make sure there’s one on board the ship,” Isabela replies blithely. “If the crew’s getting restless, they’re great entertainment. Next, we should butter his paws.”

“I don’t know, eventually he’s going to be taller than us and capable of wielding swords again. I think the cat instincts take over to some degree, but he’s going to _remember_ it later.”

“Fair,” Isabela sighs, and flops down onto the mattress. “Let’s go get drunk, then.”

Hawke hesitates. “I feel bad locking him in the house alone,” she admits. “He’s a person, not an animal. It’s rude.”

“So? Take him with.”

Hawke sits up, considering. “Can we?”

“We found him there in the first place.” Isabela reaches over the side of the bed and scoops up the ball of cat and scarf, unwinding the fabric from his scrabbling legs. “What about it, prettyboy?” she addresses the cat, holding him up to eye level. “How’s your balance?”

 

 

Hawke expects another fight, but somehow, only minutes later she’s walking down the street with a cat slung around her neck. His claws dig into the leather at her shoulders, but he doesn’t try to jump down or take her ear off. Just sits and surveys their path, whiskers twitching as he sniffs the breeze.

“I didn’t expect that to work,” Hawke says, smiling.

“There’s still time to try that throwing-him-in-the-faces-of-our-enemies trick you mentioned,” Isabela replies, skipping ahead down the road. The walk to The Hanged Man seems much shorter now that it’s dry out, and she’s headed to rather than away from good company.

“Maybe tomorrow. If nothing else, he certainly makes a good neckwarmer.” The fur tickles against the sides of her face, but his soft weight blocks the frigid breeze whistling between the buildings.

“I’ll have to try it next.”

“I think you’d find a pair of pants might be more help,” Hawke replies wryly as they reach the tavern, and Isabela laughs as she pulls open the door, and they enter.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!! ahh, a lot more people ended up finding this than I expected, I'm glad you all are enjoying it. 
> 
> There will be about one more chapter/section left after this one, but because of the response to this, I'm probably going to do something a little different with how I format/write the ending--not certain yet how to swing it in AO3 html. So it might end up looking like 3 shorter chapters or similar instead. Not sure yet, will need to experiment.
> 
> Anyway, I'm away into the desert until Thursday evening for work, but I'll hopefully be able to have it up then :)


	4. Chapter 4

They two women practically burst into Varric’s room at the Hanged Man, and he nearly spills soup down the _V_ of his shirt in surprise.

“Hawke! I expect to see the Rivaini here before sunset, but you? Not so much.”

“That’s the plan,” Hawke tells him cheerfully. “I’m avoiding all those chantry folk after me for repair bills. They’ll never think to look for me here. Or if they do, they won’t risk actually coming in.”

“Is—did you bring the _cat_ with you?”

“It’s not fair to leave Fenris home all day,” Isabela replies seriously. “He lyrium-paws the mice and leaves their tiny hearts all over the carpet.”

Varric looks as though he isn’t sure whether or not to take her seriously.

“Also I wanted to know if you had any idea how to turn him back,” Hawke amends. “Merrill and Anders haven’t figured it out yet.”

“And what makes you think _I’m_ qualified in diagnosing magical transformation ailments?”

“Well, you _do_ pretend to be an expert on everything,” Hawke points out, sitting down at his small table. Fenris slides from her neck, stretching as he looks about the room. “Maybe you’d heard… something or other. Read it in a book.”

“I work in fiction,” he replies dryly, “and heavily dramatized history.”

“That’s what Hawke’s here for,” Isabela says, waving a hand. “ _I’m_ here to see if he remembers how to play Diamondback under that fur. I owe him twenty silver but if we start now, I bet I can pay up in milk instead.”

Varric shrugs. “Magical cats are beyond my realm of expertise. But cards I can do. I’ll round up the rest of the gang.”

 

It’s several hours before the rest of their group trickles in, and Varric shuts his door so Fenris can make a cautious exploration of the room while Hawke wheedles stories out of the dwarf to pass the time. Eventually, he and Isabela convince her to spend their rounds in the bar proper instead of in Varric’s quarters—despite her unease after his earlier comments on the likelihood of someone snatching Fenris away. But Varric promises to keep both her and the cat well-supplied with snacks all evening, and she finally relents.

Merrill arrives first, and thankfully doesn’t press Hawke on how administering the last tonic had gone.

“Hello,” she croons instead, as Fenris eyes her warily from his perch on the tabletop. “Are we playing cards again?” She asks, sitting down in one of the wooden chairs as Varric begins to shuffle his deck with needless showmanship.  
“You got it, Kitten,” Isabela says, then snorts at her own joke.

“Oh dear. I’m not very good at this game.”

“Don’t worry,” Hawke reassures her. “I’ll keep them all distracted for you.”

“I thought Fenris said you weren’t very good either, last time,” Merrill replies, blinking owlishly across the table at Hawke.

“Hey now,” she says, shooting the cat a reproachful glance that he blithely ignores. “I win nearly as often as he does.”

“Only because any time he starts getting too far ahead _you_ start unlacing your blouse,” Isabela mutters, and Varric nearly chokes on his beer.

“ _You_ suggested that,” Hawke points out. “Anyway, it doesn’t work nearly as well as you claimed.”

“Never gives me problems,” Isabela replies cheerfully, as the door to the bar swings open, the shadow of a tall man momentarily darkening the entryway.

“I heard we’re up for a game?” Donnic calls as he joins them.

“You got it,” Isabela winks at him. “No Aveline tonight?”

“No, she’s got a patrol.”

“For the best, eh?” Hawke says, scooting her chair over to make room for him. “Less glares at all of us for gambling, I suppose.” As the man sits down, Fenris stands and trots over, sniffing at the mug of beer he sets down on the table.”

“Oh right—did Aveline, ah, fill you in on the current predicament?”

“You—you don’t mean that’s _actually_ Fenris,” Donnic says, gaze dropping in astonishment. “I didn’t think—”

“A surprise to us all,” Hawke agrees sardonically. “Believe me, this is weirder than any drunken dream I’ve ever come up with myself.”

“Huh,” he says, letting the cat sniff his finger tips before it saunters back across the table to lie directly on top of Isabela’s cards. “You know, I nearly thought this was a normal town before you all showed up.”

 

The night is—fun. Easy. To everyone’s surprise, Hawke wins the first two hands, but then promptly wrecks her lead by losing the next four. Fenris shows no interest in the game aside from occasionally knocking over the tower of coins in the middle, alternately curling up on her or Isabela’s lap to nap. Anders shows up an hour into the game—citing an influx of patients at the clinic for his lateness—and Merrill happily abandons her spot in the game to him, trying to win Fenris’ favor instead. He does not let her pet him, ears lying back against his head when she tries, but he does permit her to brush his fur with a fine-toothed wooden comb from her pocket.

“It’s charmed to keep away tangles,” she comments to Hawke, “but I thought maybe it’d have some effect for turning him back. Oh well. He seems to like it at least.”

She wasn’t wrong—his eyes had finally closed, and while he wasn’t purring, he was at least puddled in relaxation on the table. Hawke couldn’t remember ever seeing him so calm around the blood mage.

“He certainly is,” she agrees, biting back a flood of anxiety. Everything was going _well_. He was just acting more cat-like because—he was getting used to it. It was still Fenris in there—wasn’t it?  
Hawke folds her hand—not that it had been doing her any favors anyway—waving the others to continue playing without her for the round.

“Merrill,” she addresses the woman in a low voice, “tell me really now. Is it… bad that he hasn’t turned back yet? He will eventually, even if we can’t fix it ourselves, right?”

Merrill pauses her brushing, turning her large somber eyes to meet Hawke’s.

“You’re really worried about him, aren’t you,” she answers, too quietly for the rest of their rowdy comrades to hear.

Hawke swallows. “Yeah,” she says. “I guess I am.”

She carefully sets the comb down on the table with a soft _click_ , studying the snoozing cat thoughtfully, red shadows dancing off her face from the light of the hearth, vallaslin almost black in the firelight.

“When he didn’t turn back after the first day, I thought it couldn’t possibly be a spell. It would take an experienced shapeshifter, one more skilled than any I’ve ever met, to transform someone that accurately for so long. I thought it _must_ be a potion or amulet.”

“Right,” Hawke agrees. “That’s why we’ve been trying all your—um. Recipes.”

“Exactly,” Merrill says, frowning distractedly. “They didn’t do anything. Even if they weren’t _right_ , they should have done _something_ if it was an illusion. I think—I think this must be the work of a mage after all. A very powerful one.”

“Oh.” Hawke sits, chewing her lip as she stares at the fuzzy beast on the table. As though sensing their gaze, Fenris’ eyes slit open, a thin flash of green.

“ _Mrrp?_ ” he chirps, and Hawke hesitantly reaches out to scratch his ears, until his eyes close again in satisfaction. Next to her, Donnic crows in triumph as he scoops the pile of coins across the table in front of him. Anders and Isabela are already complaining over each other as Varric begins to deal another hand.

“So…” Hawke finally sighs. “We just… wait.”

Merrill gives Hawke a smile that appears far too all-knowing to appear on such an guileless face. “You miss him, don’t you.”

“You don’t?”

“You have to admit, he’s much more cuddly this way.”

Hawke snorts. “For all his spiky armor, he never _bit_ me when he was people-shaped.”

“Not even once?” Merrill asks, and Hawke whips her head to stare with narrowed eyes at the elf’s suddenly innocent expression. “You’re right, though. It’d be a shame not to get him back eventually. But I _do_ think it will wear off, Hawke.”

Hawke grimaces, and takes a large swallow of beer. “Okay then, here’s one. Will he still be— _himself_ , once this is over. Sometimes I think—I don’t know. I haven’t spent much time with cats. But he seems less and less… _human_.”

“Elven,” Merrill quietly corrects, and Hawke turns bright red, only half-hidden in the dimness of the room. “But I know what you mean. And I don’t know. But whoever did this was skilled enough to make last this long. They’re certainly skilled enough to keep all of _him_ in there, no matter how snuggly he gets in the meanwhile.” She pats Hawke’s leg gently. “Either way, there’s nothing we can do for now. If something does go wrong, once he’s back to normal, then we’ll be able to help.”

Hawke doesn’t feel entirely reassured, but some of her worry does lift. And in a way, Merrill is right—worrying is useless for now. She needs to just put this out of her mind and let whatever happens—happen. And, if she happens to be tracking down apostates for Anders to quietly smuggle out of Kirkwall for the next few days—there’s nothing wrong with asking a few questions while she’s at it.

Heartened, Hawke slaps her hand on the table to get Varric’s attrention.

“Alright, folks,” she announces. “Prepare to lose your gold. Deal me in, dwarf.”

 

  

Back in her bed, Hawke sighs contentedly as she wriggles herself farther into the blankets.

“Not bad, eh?” she asks Fenris, who hops up onto the bedcovers with a smooth leap. “Only lost a few silver overall. I think I’m on to something. Forget unlaced blouses. Kicking Donnic in the shins works much better.”

Fenris makes a small rumbling noise, and settles onto the blanket against her back. His breaths are is soft and shallow, and if she lies perfectly still, she can feel the tiny, quick beats of his heart through the covers.

 _Funny_ , Hawke thinks, already dozing as he purrs quietly beside her. _Out of everything, his voice basically stayed the same_.

In another minute, she is gone, swept away into whatever dreams will claim her for this night.

 

  ___________________________

 

Somehow, the week that began so miserably—filled with death, destruction of property, and a rising sense of unrest in the city’s veins—continues on with almost a cheerful note. The threats to her person (and wallet) over Chantry repairs diminish into quiet grumbles. The vivid memories of Seamus’ death sink back from her waking mind, although they are slower to fade from her nightmares. Even Aveline’s annoyed look the next day—no doubt referencing the bruises on her husband’s legs, or potentially his lightened purse—somehow sets their group back into their usual rapport. Oh, unrest still crawls along the streets like a swarm of stinging insects, Hawke knows. But their buzzing is almost a background noise now; no less loud, but at least consistent enough to ignore.

On a tip from Corff, one night she and her companions venture out to pick apart a new smuggling ring, and the night ends with Hawke kicking a whole chest of contaminated medicine into the ocean, a badly bruised and regretful looking sailor cowering next to the docks under Ander’s fierce glower. _Finally_ , some part of her sighs in relief, _things are back to normal_.

Sort of. As the disgraced criminal turns and flees into the city, Fenris’ small cat form stalks forward from the shadows, tail held high. Hawke had been terrified of bringing him along at first, but during the first alleyway fistfight he vanished from the chaos, trotting out again only once things had calmed down. However valiant and determined for close-quarters combat he was in his usual form, he at least seemed resigned to staying out of the way as long as he was trapped like this.

“Well,” Hawke sighs, “that’s that taken care of, at least.” Moonlight glitters from beneath her, the dancing shards of light shattering and reforming as waves rock the water’s surface. She hadn’t expected the night to last this long when she headed out, the sun still looming heavily over the tops of the buildings. Now, trudging back up the dark streets to Hightown, any residual warmth from its rays has long faded. She waves a tired goodbye to Anders and Isabela as they split away, the later eying her enviously as the warm cat purrs against Hawke’s neck. His small body is a reassuring weight against the dark at her back as she plods along the uneven stone cobbles, body aching after the extended outing.

“Just so you know,” she tells him, not caring who sees her talking to herself in the streat, “I meant what I said to Isabela yesterday. You _are_ still a person, not an animal. If I ever do something that crosses a line, just—just tell me. Uh, bite me or something.”

“ _Mrowp_ ,” replies the cat, and Hawke doesn’t know what else to say when the person she most desperately wants to talk to can’t speak back.

 

 

The next three days float by with no real change. Fenris joins them as they wander the city, riding atop Hawke’s shoulders through the more busy streets, trotting along nearby when it’s empty. Hawke refuses to let him down without her mabari also along to pursue any would-be catnappers, a precaution Fenris clearly resents, never letting the hound within five feet of him without hissing and swiping at the larger animal.

They beat up a man preying on alienage women. They find and return an old hat to another regular at the Hanged Man. Another band of carta thugs is cleared from the alleyways of Lowtown. Hawke buys Fenris a ball of yarn, and when she wakes up the next morning, the entire living room is covered in a giant tangle of red string. Hawke gets another angry letter from the Chantry that she promptly drops into the wastebin. However weird her life has gotten, Hawke somehow adjusts. She always does.

 

 

Varric sends her a note that afternoon, letting her know that they’ll be gathering again at the Hanged Man, and Hawke cheerfully gathers up the last of the fraying string in her entryway. The sound of the steady rain outside echoes through the spacious house, cool drafts puffing into the room now and then as she works. Fenris huddles in front of the hearth, eying Hawke suspiciously as she pulls on her heavy wool cloak.

“You can stay behind if you want,” she tells him, “but I’m going anyway.”

“ _Wrrrp_ ,” he protests, strolling over to brush his thin back against her calf.

“Does that mean you want me to stay, or to come with?”

His somber green eyes stare up at her, unreadable.

“Well, I’m not turning around if you change your mind.” Hawke bends to pick him up, and he climbs across her shoulders to settle into his now usual position around her neck. She struggles to fit the cloak’s hood around both of them—luckily she prefers them wide to start—but eventually manages to get both of them mostly inside the thick fabric.

It sort of works. The breeze blows droplets into her face, and Fenris’ tail lashes angrily against her ear the whole walk down to the tavern, and she has to bite her lip to stop from giggling madly at the ticklish touch. When she finally enters and arrives at their table, her face is shiny with rainwater, and Fenris struggles out of the cloak to leap down to the table and begin furiously washing his damp whiskers.

“Great night for a meeting, Varric,” she comments sardonically.

He shrugs. “Seems perfect to me. I wander down the hall, and get to stay safe and dry all night. No kicking around mercenaries out in the cold.”

Hawke shrugs off the sodden cloak, taking a seat. The table is card-free, her friends mostly opting for steaming mugs of cider or bowls of soup. She notes that Anders still wears his thin cloak, soaked feathers steaming as he slowly picks at a slice of bread. Hawke frowns. The clinic can’t be very good at keeping out the cold or wet this time of year, and it’s only going to get worse. She makes a mental reminder to keep an eye on him—no doubt his benefit is part of why Varric tried to gather them all on such a miserable evening.

Aveline and Donnic arrive to complete their small party, dragging over chairs from nearby empty tables. Besides the regulars, it doesn’t appear to be a popular night to drink. Hawke doesn’t blame them—the rain outside intensifies, and though she’s only just arrived, she already begins to bemoan the long walk home later that evening. Perhaps Merrill would let her stay with her instead…

Hawke orders her own cider, sipping the hot beverage gratefully. She offers some to Fenris out of habit, but he scorns the drink, twitching his tiny pink nose.

“I don’t think he should have alcohol like that anyway,” Anders advises, his shivering finally abated enough for him to join the conversation.

“His decision,” Hawke shrugs. The cat winds his way across the table to Isabela instead, disdainfully ignoring the bowl of fish stew in front of her and climbing to drape himself around her neck instead.

“You could be making more of an effort, Anders,” Isabela advises. “This may be your best shot at getting him to tolerate mages.”

“I prefer tabbies,” Anders replies dryly, shaking his head.

Hawke ignores them, turning to Aveline. “Haven’t seen you around much lately. Guards keeping you busy?” A crack of thunder accompanies her words, and the sounds of the downpour outside rise above the crackle of the fire.

“That’s one way to put it,” Aveline answers tiredly. “All the usual gangs have come out of the woodwork this past week, and new ones are popping up all the time. Should finally get a break tonight though—anyone with even a handful of sense will be safe indoors tonight.”

“Then why’d you come out?” Isabela smirks.

“Unfortunately, patrols happen regardless. We’re on again in an hour.”

“Ouch,” Hawke sympathizes. “Have you heard anything about how the Arishok’s taking th—”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, SO, there are two chapters left, and (once posted) you can read them in ANY ORDER. There are two endings to this fic because Reasons and you can pick your favorite one to call canon. Sorry this chapter cuttoff is kinda weird for now.
> 
> Originally the options were just gonna be part of this same chapter with some Cool Column Formatting but then I wrote too damn much and it got way too long visually to be pleasant to read (also woulda been Hell for anyone on mobile probably. Alas, my bizarre-format-loving heart weeps).
> 
> Anyway hopefully gonna get them up tomorrow! Sorry for the delay on this one as well, it's been a surprisingly busy two weeks.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is one of two potential endings. You can read this or the next chapter in any order.

Another sharp _crack_ of thunder masks her words, with an accompanying _bang_ as the tavern door blows open and slams against the wall. The figure outside is silhouetted momentarily in the corner of Hawke’s eye by a fleeting flash of lightning, a tall drenched man in a cloak. She turns again to Aveline, but a soft “Oh, dear,” from the other end of the table catches her attention. She glances towards Merrill, but the elf is staring wide-eyed at the doorway, a complicated series of emotions flashing across her expressive face.

Hawke turns, and freezes in astonishment.

Standing in the doorway, silvery hair plastered to his scalp, is a glowering Fenris. He stomps into the tavern, the damp breeze billowing after him to stir Hawke’s hair before he slams the door shut behind him.

“Oh, fuck,” Hawke hears a voice murmur behind her, and she’s too dumbfounded to even guess who had uttered it. Unable to help herself, she glances back to where the lithe cat still drapes itself across Isabela’s skin. The pirate’s eyes meet hers helplessly, and by the time Hawke tears her gaze away to look at the elf again, he’s made his way to their table.

“Didn’t feel like coming after all, I suppose,” he snarls. “Who could blame you. The weather was miserable. Hiding out from _forty slavers_ in a _cave_ for six days even more so.”

“Oh Maker,” Hawke squeaks out. “Fenris, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were still waiting out there—”

“Where did you think I was? Having a picnic?” His green eyes stare at her accusingly. They really are the _exact_ same shade. “You said you’d come help if I didn’t return!”

Hawke can feel her face burning under his gaze. _I am so, so stupid. How the fuck did I get fooled by a_ cat _?_

“We—um, things here got—more complicated than I expected,” she sputters lamely, the excuses wilting on her tongue like dying flowers as he glares. “The, uh, Viscount’s son…” She trails off helplessly. “Shit, Fenris, I am _so_ sorry—”

His gaze sweeps across their cramped circle, all staring back at him in equal amazement, and stop to linger on Isabela. He frowns.

“Why is there a cat in your cleavage?”

There is a moment of confused silence at the table, and then Varric bursts into laugher, dropping his head onto folded arms and guffawing helplessly into the table.

“It wasn’t just Hawke,” Merrill pipes up helpfully over the muffled mirth. “We all thought you’d been turned into the cat, you see. We would have come otherwise.”

“You—what?” Bafflement and dawning outrage compete across his sharp features. His so very full-sized features.

“Let’s not get into that—” Hawke tries hastily, but Isabela is already lifting the cat from her shoulders to stare at it reproachfully.

“The markings are _almost_ exact,” she confirms, glancing from the feline to the elf and back. “Really, I think this was an understandable mistake.”

“You thought that I’d been turned into a cat.” His voice is flat with disbelief. “You really thought _that_ was the most logical explanation for my absence?”

“Okay, look, see these stripes on the chin here—” the cat bats at Isabela’s finger as she pokes towards his face, and then turns to _meow_ plaintively at Hawke, who can only shrug helplessly under the identical green gazes.

“I had no part in this,” Aveline announces, rubbing her eyes tiredly. “Sort it out yourselves.”

Fenris makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat, and turns towards the door, water droplets scattering across the table as he shakes his head.

“Wait—” Hawke lunges out of her seat, grabbing her cloak to head after him. After a step she hesitates, then whirls to point at Merrill. “You take Fe—uh, the cat home tonight. Don’t let him— _it_ out into the alienage after dark.”

“Hey,” Isabela protests. “Why can’t I keep him?”

“Because you don’t sleep in the same room here every night and I still don’t want it getting eaten, even if it’s not Fenris,” Hawke snaps. “We’ll sort out the details later.”

“All right,” Merrill says doubtfully, as the cat eyes her. “I still don’t think he likes me very much though…”

Her protest fades from Hawke’s earshot as she hurries through the empty tavern, just catching the door as it swings shut again in Fenris’ wake. Outside, she rushes through the rain until she manages to catch up, striding grimly alongside him.

He doesn’t say anything, so she doesn’t, either. Twenty different explanations bloom in her throat just to die on her tongue as soon as she opens her mouth, while they walk through the driving storm. The journey to Hightown has never quite felt so excruciatingly long before, as she floats at the edge of his enraged silence. But as he turns to head down the alley to his crumbling home, she grabs his elbow, steering him determinedly back towards her own house instead.

Even through the rain, she can see his lip curl in anger.

“Hawke, I am _not_ in the mood—”

“I don’t care. You’re soaking wet, you’ve been walking for _miles_ , and you left the tavern without eating. I’m not letting you go back to that roofless wind tunnel until you’re at _least_ dry and fed.” She shakes her head sharply as he opens his mouth, cutting him off. “I don’t mind if you’re mad at me, I deserve that; I’m not asking you to stop. But I’m not going to let you freeze to death on top of everything else.”

To her surprise, he says nothing, and follows as she leads them through the street to her entryway. She doesn’t let go of his arm, but she forces her fingers to relax their clenching vicegrip. Is that her hand that’s shaking, or just his shivering? Hawke isn’t sure she can tell.

Inside, the fire still roars; fresh logs added by Orana before bed just beginning to crisp on top of the coals. Fenris stands before it while Hawke spreads their soaking cloaks over a chair to dry, and she can’t help but notice how violently he shivers now that the lose material doesn’t hide him. Guilt twists horribly in the pit of her stomach, and she drags the other chair right up to the edge of the flames.

“Here,” she tells him, reaching to tug at his shoulder until he complies and sits down. “I’ll get you some food.” As she turns, Orana emerges from the kitchen, yawning and clearly having just woken.

“Mistress? Do you need anythi—oh!” She stops at the sight of Fenris, and blushes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize you had a guest—”

“That’s all right, Orana,” Hawke tells her, fighting a rising blush herself at whatever the young girl’s assuming, however wrong that guess may be. “Could you bring Fenris some towels? It’s been raining like hell all evening. After that, please go back to bed. It’s late; I’m sorry we woke you.”

“Yes, Miss,” she curtsies, and hurries upstairs to the linen closet, sneaking a wide-eyed look at the elf huddled before the fire as she flees.

Hawke exits to the kitchen. Fortunately, there is still stew in the pot in the cooking hearth, and while the flames have long since died, the thick metal still radiates warmth. She spoons two generous portions into bowls, and then with a frown, fills one of them to the brim instead.

When she reenters, Fenris is roughly drying his hair with a towel, and Orana is nowhere to be seen. Hesitantly, Hawke waits for him to finish, and then hands him the nearly overflowing bowl.

“Here,” she offers. “Don’t worry. It’s beef, not fish.”

He takes the food wordlessly, and Hawke bites her lip as his shaking hands begin to spoon it into his mouth. She sits in the chair farther back, giving him space and silence as he eats, picking at her own bowl. Somehow, the eight cannonballs that seem to have found their way into her stomach are making it hard to eat.

She doesn’t say anything until he sets his bowl on the floor, not quite empty.

“You know,” she finally begins, setting her mostly untouched food down as well, “the cat really did look like you.”

The strangled noise that escapes his throat sounds more like choking than anything else, but she thinks she sees a wry smile quirk one corner of his mouth as he buries his face into his hands, elbows resting on his knees.

“This is—not what I expected,” he tells her, voice heavy and rough.

“Frankly, I don’t see _how_ you could have guessed it,” Hawke agrees. “But—what _did_ happen?”

“Exactly what you told me,” he sighs, spreading his fingers slightly to stare between them, into the flickering fire. “I ran into something bigger than I could handle. Two dozen men, not two. Fortunately, they were untrained. They could have rushed me together, but they were too worried for their own damn lives. I spent days hiding in the caves picking them off before I could make a run for it.”

“This is my fault. I should have been there to help you.”

“No, it’s—I don’t know what I expected. I told you not to come.”

“I should have gone anyway.” Hawke stares at where his bare feet meet the floor, not trusting herself to look at his face directly. His limbs still tremble, with residual cold or exhaustion, she can’t say.

She wants to ask him to stay. Not _with_ her, just—in a place she can be certain he’s safe. And dry. This whole mess started with her letting him run off in the first place. But—she can’t. No matter what she _wants_. It’s his choice. It always has been.

“I’d forgotten what it was like. Fighting alone. I did it for so long, I thought it would be natural, but—” He pauses, for a long moment. “I thought perhaps you had decided things would be easier here without me.”

“Oh, Fenris,” Hawke replies, the heartbreak his words wake in her plain in her voice. “Of course not, never. I don’t know what I’d do without you here.” Hawke hesitates for a moment, wanting to say more—but that’s not a conversation either of them are ready to have yet. “Seamus was killed,” she tells him instead. “I did mean it when I said things got—complicated. If I’d been thinking straight, I would have known it was too crazy that you’d been—ah. Turned into a cat.”

“He’s dead?” Fenris asks, surprised. “By the Qunari?”

“No. The Chantry. The plot was bigger than any of us expected.”

He frowns, digesting the information, exhaustion deepening the lines on his face. His tattoos flash gold in the firelight.

“Thank you,” he says softly.

Hawke isn’t sure what exactly he’s thanking her for, but she has to close her eyes to stop her tears from flooding out anyway. It is several minutes before she manages to open them again, and when she does, Fenris’ head rests on the side of the chair, features relaxed into the smooth lines of sleep.

“I won’t force you to stay,” she whispers softly. “But you’re welcome here as long as you want. Always.”

He doesn’t move. Hawke closes her eyes again, the firelight warm on her skin, and listens to the storm outside slowly wash the streets of the city clean.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the ending originally specified in the prompt! I spent a lot of time balancing making the cat seem like Fenris to Hawke & co while also having only plausible normal cat behaviors. I was going to make a joke about Schrödinger's cat here but now I'm too lazy to word it well, so, there goes that.
> 
> If you're wondering about the cat, it eventually warms up to Merrill, and turns out to be more than a match for the alienage rats. Isabela stops by to play with it often :) They start calling him Fenris Jr and Fenris almost never forgives them for it. It's pretty much the only thing he and Anders agree on.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me through this silly story! Don't forget to read the other ending option if you haven't already.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is one of two potential endings. You can read this or the previous chapter in any order.

Another sharp _crack_ of thunder masks her words, with an accompanying _bang_ as the tavern door blows open and slams against the wall. Corff hurries around the bar to swing the door closed, struggling against the heavy wind that forces through the sudden gap. Raindrops scatter the floor, and Hawke shivers in the chilly gust that whistles through the bar before he manages to shove it closed.

“What was that you were saying?” Aveline asks as Hawke turns back, but she shakes her head.

“Nevermind. It’s nothing that can’t wait.”

Hawke glances down the table at Isabela. Fenris is still curled across her shoulders, one paw lazily batting at the dangling gold coins on her necklace. As though he feels her gaze, he looks up, the dark slitted pupils of his eyes huge in the dim room. He blinks at her, once, slowly.

“What about you, Hawke?” Varric asks, startling her back into the conversation.

“Hm?”  
“What’s your absolute least favorite animal on the Wounded Coast?”

“Oh. The spiders, definitely.” Hawke takes another sip of her drink, holding the warm liquid on her tongue for a moment before swallowing. The night is cold, and wet, and she is going to have to walk much too far to get back to her bed tonight. But here, with the warmth of the hearth seeping back into the room, surrounded by her companions—she feels better than she has in weeks. 

 

During a brief lull in the storm, Hawke excuses herself, pleading Fenris’ still-damp fur as a justification to end the night early and head home while she might have a chance at staying somewhat dry. He is reluctant to squish himself into the hood again—much to Isabela and Varric’s delight—but Hawke eventually manages to get both of them somewhat covered. With a last cheerful wave, she slips outside, pulling the heavy door shut after her.

“ _Mrrr,_ ” Fenris complains as she sets off, her brisk pace bouncing him slightly with each step. A cold nose pokes into her ear, and Hawke has to stifle an embarrassingly high-pitched squeal of surprise as she reaches up to cover her ears.

“That’s not fair!” she lectures him sternly. “I could be making you walk, you know. And then you’d be knee-deep in puddles the whole way home.”

He doesn’t reply. Hawke keeps talking to him anyway. After all, there’s no way for anyone to hear her chatting away to a cat over the wind.

 

Hawke creeps inside her home slowly, gently shutting the door and removing her wet boots so as not to wake Orana. Fenris clambers down awkwardly as she removes her cloak, nearly getting tangled in the damp fabric as he claws his way to the floor. Tail high, he trots to the fireplace, which is thankfully blazing readily in the hearth, and begins to groom his soggy fur. There’s no sign of her housemaid about, and Hawke notes guiltily that the last shreds of red yarn have also been neatly cleared away.

“I’m going to bed,” she whispers to the cat, yawning. “Stay out here if you want, but I’m too tired.”

He watches her as she ascends the stairs, the tip of his tail twitching, but stands to follow before she’s even halfway up. When she emerges from the washroom, dressed for bed, he lies curled on the blankets waiting, as he has the last several nights.

Hawke slides into bed, no longer bothering to carefully ease past the cat. It’s _her_ bed, after all, and the last two nights she’s woken in the morning to realize she’s almost halfway over the edge, while a very content Fenris sprawls across far more of the mattress than such a tiny creature should be able to cover. He doesn’t protest as she wriggles into place, merely stands and walks across her stomach with tiny, sharp feet, and nestles in to his now-familiar place atop the covers near the small of her back.

It is such a very… un-Fenris like motion, Hawke thinks as she settles into her pillows. She’s gotten used to his increased physicality over the last week, somewhat—hell, she’d just been scratching his ears at dinner, not to mention letting him sit on her lap. But here, in the dark, it just reminds her how… wrong all of this is. She never would have guessed she’d prefer the standoffish, reticent version of him, but when he _did_ eventually crack a joke, or brush against her arm… she doesn’t quite know how to describe it, even to herself. Something about the lack of meaning when she can’t guess how much of his actual intent is in the cat’s movements underneath the spell. Something about the feeling of two people waiting in a dark room, not touching, but within reach.

The rain grows heavier again outside the windows. Hawke wishes the autumn storms would stop. It’s different here, where there’s no crops to soak up and convert the water into something green and good—here, it just puddles up on the surface it can’t pierce, rushing as fast as it can away from the stone and steel of the city. She used to love storms, before they left Ferelden. Now there’s no use for them—only inconvenience. It is, perhaps, the only thing she misses from that life anymore—excepting her family.

Tumbling through strangely nostalgia-laden thoughts, Hawke drifts into sleep, her dreams no less tumultuous.

 

An enormous _boom_ of thunder wakes Hawke with a start, so loud and violent that her half-awake mind instantly panics that her house has been struck by lightning. She jerks upright with a gasp, tangled in the heavy weight of blankets and—no, that’s _not_ blankets, it’s the same ogre that killed her sibling, come from nightmares to claim her too—

With a strangled cry, Hawke kicks at the cold metal armor, and it thumps onto the floor with a sound that… that… no, she’s not dreaming, she’s in her room in Hightown. There is no ogre. So what—

“Oh Maker,” Hawke gasps, fumbling across the bed. Her eyes slowly adjust to the dim orange glow of the room, lit only by dying embers. But she doesn’t need light to make out the silhouette wheezing on the floor next to her bed—clothed once more in spiked iron, and leather, and bare flesh.

“Fenris—“ she half-yelps, scrabling her way out of the blankets to pull him upright. He staggers wildly, and she half-pushes, half-drags him to the edge of the bed. He collapses onto it, legs jerking as she helps prop him up, ragged breathes mutating into a hacking cough before he settles into normal, if raspy, breaths.

“Are you okay?” Hawke asks, worried. “Can you speak?”

He opens his mouth, makes another croaking noise, then shuts his eyes and takes another deep lungful of air.

“I… yes.”

Hawke almost feels faint with relief. Hurriedly, she hands him the water glass from her nightstand, and with fumbling hands, he drains the whole thing while she waits. More than a little water splashes onto the mattress. Something wells up inside her as she watches him, something warm and light and painful, nearly bursting behind her breastbone.

“Shit, Fenris, I’m so sorry—I didn’t mean to kick you, I was having a nightmare. I didn’t realize—”

“It’s fine,” he cuts her off, as she takes back the empty glass. “I didn’t realize what was happening. I…” he stares down at his hands, which twitch and flex in a way that looks extremely uncomfortable to Hawke. “I couldn’t figure out how my legs worked,” he admits. “Knees that bend the right way again.”

Hawke almost laughs, but with an effort, she stifles it—if she laughs, the pressure inside her will collapse, and she’ll start crying and who knows what else will come spilling out.

“What _happened?_ ” she asks, instead. It’s the only safe thing she can think to say. “How the _hell_ did you get turned into a _cat_ , of all things?”

Fenris stares critically at his palms, clenching and unclenching his fingers, as though trying to remember how they work. He’s shaking less now, Hawke notes. She’s still holding him by the shoulder. Embarrassed, she loosens her grip, sliding a few inches back once it’s clear he’s no longer in danger of falling over. Finally, he answers.

“I didn’t even make it to the slaver’s hideout. I spent the night in a cave on the coast. I woke in the night and there was a—woman, staring at me.” Hawke can hear the undertones of “filthy mage” as he says the word woman, practically spitting it out in disgust. “I thought she was going to kill and rob me. Or attempt to. Instead, she asked me questions. When it became apparent I could not answer them, she got angry.”

“What?” Hawke is utterly baffled. “Who was she? What kind of questions.”

“I have no idea. I can say for certain I’d never met her before. And—strange questions.” He frowns, trying to remember. “About another woman she was searching for. Also a mage, who she said she thought she’d killed in the south of Ferelden years ago, but heard had fled to the Free Marches somehow instead. I told her I knew of no such mages. She didn’t believe me.”

“Why not?” Hawke asks, baffled. “Why would she think you would know? Hundreds of people fled north during the blight, if not thousands.”

“I believe the phrase she used was that I ‘reeked of magic I could never hope to recognize or ken,’” he growls. The sound is so like the rumblings he made as a cat, Hawke has to squash down another bout of giggles. “After that, she grew frustrated, and turned me into the cat. Then she said she had more important things to take care of, and left.”

“That’s…” Hawke blinks, struggling to piece together the strange story. “That’s not what I would have guessed at all.” She’s not sure what she thought might have happened, but interrogative mages wasn’t one of them. “What did she look like?”

He shrugs. “Dark hair, ostentatious jewelry. Not many clothes.”

Hawke narrows her eyes. “Now you sound like you’re just talking about Isabela.”

He snorts. “I was largely preoccupied with the glowing staff being aimed at my chest.”

Hawke runs a hand through her hair, even more confused than she’d been before he’d explained things. “Well,” she admits, “I guess there’s nothing we can do unless she comes back.”  
“If she does, _you_ can have the pleasure of being turned into an animal instead,” he mutters.

They without speaking for a minute, only the sound of their breathing filling up the empty room. There are many things she wants to say, but—now is not the time. Hawke eventually registers that the near-constant pound of raindrops on her roof if gone, the storm finally having rained itself out. What she had mistaken for thunder upon waking must have been the sound of the spell wearing off.

“I’m glad your back,” Hawke tells him, softly breaking the silence. “It just wasn’t the same without you. The real you, I mean.”

“I… thank you, Hawke.”

She shivers as he speaks her name. It’s so much better than purring, really. “How much of, uh, _you_ was in the cat, anyway?” she asks, curious.

“Less than I would like there to have been,” he answers dryly. “But yes. It was me. Do you really unlace your blouse as a distraction during cards?”

Hawke’s jaw drops as she freezes, too shocked to answer. She is grateful that he probably can’t see the bright red blush spreading across her face in the dark shadows of the bedroom.

“So you remember everything from this week, then,” Hawke replies evasively after a long moment. She frantically tries to recall what else she may have let slip in front of him, her guard dangerously low since he never seemed to make an effort to communicate back to her.

“I should go,” Fenris says instead, voice ragged as he rises from the bed. “I still smell like wet fur.” He sways slightly, and Hawke stands reaches out instinctively to steady him, gripping the small stretch of bare flesh on his upper arm. His skin is warm under her palm, and once he is stable she lets go, self-conscious. He takes small, tentative steps towards the door. When he doesn’t fall, he stands taller, walking more confidently.

“Please stay,” Hawke blurts out as he reaches for the doorknob. “This spell is still wearing off. We don’t know what effects that may have.”

He pauses, but doesn’t look back at her. “I think I need to be alone right now,” he answers instead, quietly. “This week has been… draining.”

Hawke bites back the urge to insist he stay anyway. There is too much already not being said, filling the air between them. He’d been basically trapped here all week. To stop him now would be—wrong.

He opens the door. “Thank you,” he says, back to her still. “For not treating me like an animal. Even while I was one.” And then, in a softer voice—“Not everyone will do that, even for other people.”

He melts into the dark like a shadow. She cannot see him, but she hears the sound of his quiet footsteps down the stairs, followed by the soft creak and click of her door.

Hawke sits down on the bed, alone in her room for the first time in a week. It seems unnaturally quiet without the soft, tiny breathing of the cat beside her. But the tight knot of energy inside her chest has released, as though some part of her had reached out into the darkness, and felt warm fingers brush briefly against her own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, while the original prompt specified that it was a mistake the whole time & the cat wasn't really Fenris, as I was writing I did keep wondering _but if it WAS him, how did he get that way?_ My answer: we already know a powerful mage/shapeshifter with an interest in following wherever Flemeth vanished to years before. And I can't imagine any unsupervised run-in between Fenris and Morrigan ending well.
> 
> And then people were a lot more excited about the premise of this fic than I expected, and it turns out that while I love disappointing people in my angsty works, I hated the idea for it happening in a fluffy fic... so since I'd planned out this alternative anyway, I thought I'd post it as well.
> 
> You can decide which ending you prefer & consider canon. Hopefully one or the other suits everyone's tastes! Thanks for reading this completely self-indulgent nonsense.


End file.
